Burn District 1 (19 page)

“You know the country’s at war, don’t you?”

“I heard. What’s going on with the government?” Steve asked.

“Government collapsed. It’s a free-for-all. Military took over in the D. C. area, but out here, we want to be free.” They were stunned, listening. It didn’t look like freedom, with the fence and the military presence.

“So what’s going to happen?” Steve asked, feeling for the gearshift in case he had to throw it into reverse.

“Parts of the city are in mayhem. If you’ve lived in Tulip, you know about the raiders. We have ‘em here. But citizens are armed and vigilante groups are keeping their neighborhoods safe.”

“What about the burned areas? I heard it was hit pretty bad here.” The man shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s in disarray. We don’t have services, no electricity, natural gas was shut off, water has to be boiled. But the governor of Sonora, Jose Chardo is helping us. We get some of our water from Mexico. Arms and ammunition, gasoline, and when our food runs out he promised to help us with food, too.”

“What can we do for you?” It was the first time the woman in uniform spoke. Chris leaned over the seat.

“My family lived north of town. I’d heard they had left, but I want to see for myself.”

“Watch yourself getting up there,” the man replied. “We’re trying to regain order but it’s dangerous in parts. I hope you’re armed.” Steve ignored him.

“Let them by,” the woman finally said. They stepped aside and Steve thanked them, driving forward. The first area they drove through, the southeast end of town, reminded him of any slum. Boarded up houses, burned out buildings, graffiti; it was cliché. People pushing grocery carts stolen from the supermarket picked up whatever they could find.

“They’re trash picking,” Chris said. “This looks about the same as it did before the burns. Now that’s not right.” He pointed to a cluster of men standing around, shouting, pointing.

“They’re beating someone!” Kelly cried. “Oh god I can’t look.”

“Get down everyone,” Steve called. Chris pulled Junior’s head down as they drove by; the screams of someone in agony rang out.

“Okay, you can get up,” he said when they’d passed the bedlam. “You okay, Junior?”

“I’m fine, grandpa. I wish I could protect the boy they were beating up. I’m strong enough.”

“Yes, you are. And don’t forget it,” Steve said. “Let’s do a weapons check. Everyone should have a loaded gun, cocked and locked. Junior, what are you carrying?”

“I’ve got your 1911, grandpa. It’s right in my holster.”

“When do you use your gun, Junior?”

“I only use it to defend myself or my loved ones.”

“Very good, Junior,” Steve said, smiling. “Now it’s your turn Kelly.”

“I don’t know what kind of gun this is, but it’s ready to fire if I need to.” Junior started giggling.

“Kelly has a 38,” Steve said. “You should know what you have in case I’m not around to give you ammunition.”

“No one better mess with Kelly,” Junior said.

“Chris, what’d I give you?”

“A 45, sir.”

“And I also have a 45. I think we’re in good shape,” he said. “Let’s get up to Chris’s family home. And then we can go back to the camp and decide if we’re going to live here.”

Kelly looked over at him, reaching for his hand so no one could see. “Really?”

“Yep, if we can find a place, I think it’s the thing to do. But we need to get everyone’s opinion.” He looked up at a traffic light. “It’s amazing that they don’t have electricity and this light is working.”

“Some of the lights in town are solar powered,” Chris said.

Suddenly, a man jumped out in front of the Cadillac and pounded on the hood, screaming laughing.

“Stop this piece of shit, mother-fucker!” An accomplice joined him, standing with both hands on the hood of the car while the other guy pounded his way to the driver’s window.

“Open up, unless you want me to shoot your windows out of this fine car.” He tapped the tip of the barrel of a long gun against the window until Steve lowered it. Stinking of cigarette smoke and weed, the odor of an unwashed body drifted into the car.

“There’s another guy standing on the corner,” Kelly whispered, heart racing, watching him out the corner of her eye.

“So what do we have here?” The man leaned down and looked into the car, scanning the occupants. “An old man, a carrot top, a fag and a retard.” He burst out laughing and his accomplice joined in.

“Old man, you gonna give up your car, you know that, right?” He lifted the gun up and pressed the end of the barrel against Steve’s temple. In a quick, smooth move, Junior drew his gun, clicked off the safety, aimed and shot at the criminal’s hand. After the bullet penetrated it must have hit the grip, because the impact threw his hand back, the gun went off and blew the windshield out, pebbles of glass raining down on the occupants.

Chaos ensuing, Steve gunned the car and raced through the intersection. The accomplices had already run off when Junior shot, and the offender was lying in the street crying out, “My hand! You blew off my hand!”

Chris and Kelly were staring with astonishment at Junior, who was nonplused by what he’d just done.

“Grandpa, sorry I wrecked your window,” he called, the wind blowing in the car cold and noisy.

“You probably just saved my life, kiddo so no apologies needed. What a shot,” he said, proudly. “You really know how to use a gun.”

“I only use it to defend myself or my loved ones,” Junior repeated. “Is that guy going to be alright?”

“I hope not,” Kelly grumbled.

“He’ll be fine,” Steve said, shooting her a dirty look. “Don’t worry about criminals. You keep doing what you are supposed to be doing.” How he was going to tell his daughter was another story.

“We’re going to need another car,” Steve said.

“My folks will have one we can use,” Chris replied.
Either with their permission or without.

They continued driving through Yuma, shopping districts empty, people lined up at an Army truck with the word Agua written on white paper, taped to the side. Kelly tried to imagine standing in that line. They had water at the camp; solar power, food. Why shake things up?

“I’m not sure I agree with the idea of leaving,” she said softly. “We’ve just been shown it’s certainly not safe here.”

“That was three men,” Steve whispered. “What if it was a bus load? How could we defend ourselves against that?”

“We need to ask an army to live out there with us, grandpa,” Junior said. The simplicity of what the boy had said took a few seconds to penetrate.

“An army, you say?”

“Well… soldiers,” Junior corrected. “Teddy Roosevelt said, 'Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.'” Steve looked over at Kelly, who was smirking, her eyebrows raised.

“Is that right, Junior? Teddy Roosevelt?”

“I’ve been reading your books,” Junior said, embarrassed.

“That’s my folk’s road,” Chris called, pointing to a dirt road up ahead. Steve pulled on to a dirt drive that was more daunting than his own, the length of it more than two miles. Soon gravel covered the road, and then asphalt. The spectacular house or what
once
was a spectacular house; stretched out before them, the familiar smell of old burnt wood filled the air, nauseating.

“Oh no, what happened?” Chris cried. “Why would they bomb our place?” Kelly thought
maybe in retaliation
, but kept her mouth closed.

“What do you want me to do?” Steve asked. Junior leaned over to pat Chris on the back.

“I’m so sorry your house burned down, Chris,” he said.

“I have to see if anyone is still around,” Chris said, terrified. “There’s a pool house and the hanger out on the landing strip. They could be living out there.” He pointed and gave directions for Steve to drive down another, paved driveway the lead around the back of the house. Steve saw them and stopped the car; several pair of feet, toes up and toes down, discolored, obviously dead bodies.

“Chris, there are bodies back here.” Steve started to get out of the car, but Chris screamed at him.

“I’ll take care of them alone!” He jumped out of the car and they watched him approach the bodies. Steve put the car in reverse both to give Chris privacy and to protect his grandson.

Taking Junior’s hand over the seat, Steve hoped this horrible experience wasn’t going to be too much for his tender grandson. He’d been sheltered up until they ran for their lives, and although he seemed to be thriving under the demands made on him, his limitation was unknown.

“You okay, buddy?” Steve asked. “What a day.” But Junior was obsessed with his shot, barely aware of Chris’s predicament.

“You said it, grandpa. I don’t think we should tell my mom about the man with the blown off hand.”

“Now, we aren’t sure his hand was blown off,” Steve maintained firmly.

“He screamed the bullet blew it off. I don’t think my mom would like that,” Junior said logically. “Let’s not upset her.”

“Okay, that might work for a while,” Steve said. “But we don’t want to lie to her, either.”

“If we don’t tell her a lie, it’ll be okay,” Junior rationalized. Steve let it go for now.

“Should we go see if he needs help?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know how safe it is around here,” Steve replied. “Someone could be living in that hanger.” Chris came back to Steve’s side.

“Could you help me? I can’t leave them outside like this, but I don’t want to take the time to dig graves, either. I’m not sure how safe we are.”

Glad the boy was thinking in spite of his anguish, Steve got out of the car. “Let’s do what we can do for them,” Steve said. “Junior, keep an eye out. You, too, Kelly.”

“I can look out the window here if you want to scan behind the car,” Kelly suggested to Junior.

“Okay, I’ll look down the driveway,” Junior answered. Kelly couldn’t wait to get back to camp and tell Laura everything that had happened, how Junior was amazing in his reasoning and his ideas, what an important part of the team he’d become. She didn’t know if Laura would appreciate it coming from her, but she’d make the effort.

After ten minutes, the men returned to the car, wiping their hands on paper toweling. Visibly shaken, Steve didn’t say much. Chris was heartbroken. But he was still thinking.

“My dad has a Suburban. I’ll see if I can find the keys.” He returned to the house, the attached garage as damaged as the house. Returning minutes later, dangling the keys, he waved them out of the car, remembering to move the provisions from one vehicle to another.

“Let’s take a look at the hanger and see if it survived. My dad had two other planes. If I can get one out of here without crashing again, we can have a plane at the camp, too.” A plane was never an option. Steve couldn’t imagine what they’d need one for.

“Seriously? Okay, if you want to take a look.” Chris directed him back to the hanger, undamaged, impressive, and there were two small planes within.

“Help me get the hanger door open and we can push it out. Hopefully there’s gas in that tank,” he said, pointing to an above ground, gravity feed gasoline tank. The men got the huge door open, and pushed the light two-seater plane out onto the tarmac.

“I wonder how this survived.” Steve said. “You’d think a hanger of this size would’ve been the first thing bombed.”

“I don’t know. I guess destiny knew we might need it,” Chris said, testing the gasoline hose and finding there was still gas in the holding tank, gassed up the plane.

“Go back to the car, sir,” Chris said. “I’ll go through my check list and see if I can get it off the ground. Leave as soon as I’m in the air. I’ll find the camp and land in the driveway. We can have a race.”

“Ah, I’ll pass. Just get there safely,” Steve said, getting in the car as Chris said, waiting.

“Is Chris going to fly to camp?” Junior asked, excited.

“Yes, it looks like it,” Steve said. “We’ll have a plane at camp.” They waited in the Suburban, watching Chris reading a checklist and going through each maneuver, looking down at the controls and up above the windshield. Before long, he started the plane, success at the first attempt, and Chris waved at them before he started down the airstrip, the little plane popping up in the air like a toad.

“Now we have to get back to camp without getting killed,” Steve said, immediately sorry for his choice of words in front of his grandson.

“Or without blowing anyone else’s hand off,” Junior said, frowning.

“Look, you did what you are supposed to do. No fretting about it, okay?”

“I’m not fretting, grandpa,” Junior replied, but he was.

“Think about what we have to do next. Your idea of getting the soldiers to come to us was brilliant. Now figure out a way to do it, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll try.” Steve nodded at him and turned around in his seat.

“Let’s get this show on the road.”

They could still hear Chris’s plane, but he was out of sight now, beyond the few trees in the area. Chris looked down at the interstate, following it to the road leading to Tulip. There weren’t many landmarks, and he didn’t dare use his radio. But he remembered where the trailer park was that he was hired to spray and it wasn’t far from the camp.

Chapter 19

Miranda and her group hid in a deserted farmhouse outside of Tucumcari until the food the owners left behind ran out. Reluctantly, they got back in the car heading toward Arizona. Abandoned cars obstructed the interstate, so they detoured using an old paper map, afraid to use the GPS. But after hours of driving and getting nowhere, they were exhausted and hungry. “We need to stop soon,” Katherine said. “Three of us old people back here are about ready to keel over.”

Alex pulled into the next vacant gas station they came to. “Let’s see if the pumps work.” Lucky when they stopped to fuel up before, the first stations were still open and had small convenience stores. They bought every sandwich and piece of fruit. Deserted stations often had working pumps once Alex or Ed figured out how to turn them back on.

But at this last station, the pumps were shut off and the building was locked. “I don’t want to risk breaking in,” Ed said. They still had a quarter tank of gas and a full five-gallon can. While the others stretched, Miranda stayed in the van and logged on to the internet. It was sporadic at best, but occasionally she was able to refresh the forum to see what people were writing.